The U.S. U20 Women’s National Team reversed its fortunes Saturday at the World with a 5-0 win over Switzerland. The team utilized its athletic superiority to rout the Swiss, racing downfield, sometimes in transition, and getting into goal-scoring positions where the finishing was good enough to rack up an impressive tally of goals. The 2nd half was a bit of a training exercise for Jillian Ellis’ squad, and that’s just as well with a 3rd group stage, against South Korea, awaiting.

As the team moves into the knockout rounds, and maybe even as soon as Tuesday against South Korea, the U.S. will need to exhibit a wider variety of attacking options including through the middle and with a combination of passes. No crime in utilizing speed on the wings and crossing of course, or in having the speed up front to simply get behind the defense, or even in capitalizing on defensive giveaways, but other than the first goal I didn’t see to much in the way of unlocking the safe. Hopefully we can see some more of this Tuesday. Better teams and particularly better midfields and defense will prove more difficult to break down.

It’s also true that while Switzerland were fairly mediocre, they could have scored 2 or 3 goals in this game with better finishing. I think this signals a warning about both more possession needed from the U.S. and more alert defensive work.

I don’t want to make too much about questions from a 5-0 win, nor do I want to ignore especially good performances from Zakiya Bywaters (ran riot on the left wing), Sydney Leroux (scored a hat trick) and Christine Nairn (good passing), but these other areas will need to be improved upon if the U.S. team is to have a chance at repeating its World Cup title from two seasons ago.